When I was a student in elementary school in grade eight the student demographics were about 70% White and 30% non-White. However those numbers were constantly changing as from about grade 6-8 there seemed to be new students starting at my school every week. At the same time, I did not see any sort of conflict or disagreement between students about racial issues or not knowing English. One of the goals for anti bias education is that children will feel positive but not superior about their racial identity and I think this goal was achieved at my elementary school. While my high school was also very culturally and racially diverse, unlike elementary school we read novels about people with varying cultural and racial backgrounds. This allowed us to gain better understandings of our classmates while also allowing us to find and build connections between each other's past. Since I would like to become an elementary school teacher, I have spent a good amount of time volunteering at my two local elementary schools Deshaye Catholic and St Kateri the last two years. I got the chance to work with students from many different countries each with their own unique culture and traditions. Going to, and working at schools that was very culturally and racially diverse has really helped me to start seeing people for who they are and not what they look like. I would say that the majority of my school was from a single story perspective until teachers encouraged us by challenging us to start using our ability to think critically. These teachers began to encourage us to read what was being implied by what was written compared to what was being left out and the words that were on the page A person might not know that they are being taught “single stories” because they are hard to identify unless a person identifies and points them out.
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I cannot think of a time that when I was learning mathematics where I personally felt oppressed or discriminated against. Mathematics always came easily to me when I was in elementary and high school even though my math grades might not always reflect it but that was because of effort. All of the math concepts just seemed to click with me in my head either instantly or after a quick bit of extra teaching. However, I remember a time when I was in elementary school probably in grade 8 or so, some of the class would learn math with the regular classroom teacher, while a few members of the class would learn math with the learning resource teacher or a teaching assistant. I was mad that those students were able to learn the simpler math while I had to learn more difficult math. Thinking back on this situation now, I can see how this really could have made those students that were being taken to learn the other math feel singled out for ‘not being good at math or for not being able to do hard math’. Many of these students that were pulled out to do the more basic math were not the highest achieving students and would have felt out of place, but I think not pushing the students to learn or even attempt to learn the same mathematics as the rest of the grade and with the rest of the grade, and instead getting the simplified computational mathematics, was a disservice to them.
The question of how Inuit math differs from our Western or Eurocentric views on mathematics was asked. Inuit math uses base 20 and not base 10 which Eurocentric math uses because they use their ten fingers and 10 toes which make sense to me but at the same time is confusing . Secondly, the calendar days both groups have 12 months in a year but the days are more different on how they look at it, Eurocentric math says it is solar not lunar. Inuit is neither in fact, it is natural, independent recurring yearly events and base on the how long it takes that natural event to happen that is how long the month will be. Finally in Eurocentric mathematics, a ‘line’ is automatically thought of as a straight line, while in Inuit mathematics a ‘line’ is not automatically thought of as straight. I think this is important as it encourages creativity and imagination when talking about lines and shapes which are a big part of all mathematics classes. When I was in elementary school, I was taught a lot about citizenship, even though it was not till around grade 7 or 8 that I finally realized what it meant. Most of the time I was taught how to be a Personally Responsible citizen. I attended catholic schools from Kindergarten-Grade 12 and their idea of a good citizen, was to be a personal responsible citizen. The two main course in which focused the most personal responsibility as a citizen was in religion, and sometimes health. It also became a part of the schools atmosphere and culture. Any chance they had to integrate personal responsibility and independence in the school they did. Otherwise in all of the classrooms it could be seen in the daily procedures and expectations of the students. The examples of the people who were considered good citizens were people who usually had high moral standing. Usually they were were people like saints, well-known humanitarians, high ranking religious figures, or just well known people who help out in their community.
Once I entered high school the direction changed from being a personally responsible citizen to being more of a participatory student. They had students ran events, councils, and clubs, such as SRC, SADD, Minga, and Best Buddies which involved working with and being friends with the school's special education students. All of these clubs and groups required the students to take on the initiative and responsibility. This approach allows for students to not only learn how to become good citizens, but also good leaders and community members and leaders. Overall, while being a personally responsible and participatory citizen were very visible in my education experiences, being a justice oriented citizen was not. Citizenship is something that schools will continue to teach students even though it is not really a part of the core curriculum that teachers are required to teach. Schools have an obligation to teach their students much more than just the core subjects. |
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